Brewtifully Made
Here, Tracy Dawn Brewer shares creative insights, discussions with creative souls who are invited to doodle along with her and share their creative processes, and more.
Adding a twist, each episode begins with a doodle prompt and you can catch the final pieces from the episode on her YouTube channel, linked on the website! If you choose to also create along with her during an episode, share your work with the hashtag #brewtifullymade so she can shout out YOUR awesome creativity too!
Brewtifully Made
Creative Stories of Love and Legacy
Can a simple drawing change the course of your life? Journey with us as we explore the artistic legacies passed down through generations, beginning with my mom's inspiring yet bittersweet tale of artistic talent that almost was. Despite a protective grandfather who halted her dreams of attending art school, my mom's story is one of resilience and imagination. This episode offers a touching tribute to her unrecognized talent and the missed opportunities that marked her artistic journey.
I invite you to reminisce with me about my own path—a tale woven with crayons on scraps of paper and ambitious high school projects like a stop-motion Beatles animation. Experience the struggles and triumphs of creating art with limited resources and without formal references, a testament to a passion ignited in childhood that continues to burn brightly. Listen as we delve into my artistic expressions, from sketching children and historical figures to a love for realism over abstract, each piece a reflection of emotion and personal connection.
In a heartwarming conversation with my mom, we celebrate the essence of family love and legacy. Her unwavering belief that her greatest achievement is being a good mom and grandma resonates deeply, as we share laughter and gratitude for her sacrifices that paved the way for our successes. This episode is more than an exploration of art—it's a celebration of creativity's many forms, the bonds that inspire it, and the enduring impact of familial support in nurturing artistic talents across generations.
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this is brutally made. Mom, this is my podcast. You're not doing me no. I just want to talk about some of the things you told me when you were younger with art, because I love knowing what you did when you were, um, all the stories that you've told me about art and what you enjoyed doing, and some of the stories how you almost did more with art than what you have done in your life, because right now you are what? 74, yep, yeah, and I'm 54, and so it's 20 years apart from us and there's 20 years apart from Riley and the girls and stuff. So I love the story that you told me when you were really young and you used to do the drawings that were in like the TV guide, and it was a turtle and the pirate and I think there was a hair and it was like draw like this and it was for the art institutes, right, yeah, and so what did you draw and submit? I think it's a pirate, okay, and the head of a pirate or something. And I won and they came to our house and they wanted me to go to some school and I was young, yeah, yeah, and my dad wasn't having any of that because he so he actually talked to a guy that came to the house. He was down to the barn where dad was working on his tractor, yeah, and he came up in a real fancy car and had a uh like a long, uh man coat, a trench coat, yeah, and he was out there talking to my dad because I had to ask him who he was. And he was talking for a long time and he left. And when the king dad came to the house he does it. Mom said who was she talking to? And dad said some man. You remember I would always draw on everything in the house. Yeah, and uh, he he told mom who it was and everything and he gave me this paper. I don't know what I did with it back then, but I don't. I. I was like, um, let's see, I say I was probably about 15 years old, okay, and anyway, he told him no, my daughter's not going anywhere. So they wanted you to go to art school, yeah, yeah, and because he wouldn't, so you mailed that on your own. Yeah, you mailed that in, yeah, and I won, because my mom and dad was very, very protective of us kids. This is really funny that they went back then and they like what's your house? They would find you. Yeah, but anyway, he couldn't believe I was the age I was to draw, that it doesn't matter the age you are when you draw. But then I would draw stuff at school. People usually had to look at something to draw it. And my art teacher, mr Goodman, and his wife, she was a home ec teacher at school. Yeah, at that time, anyway, he says I'm going to say one word and I want you to draw a picture of it. Yeah, and everybody goes. Ha. He said fear, everybody's going. Ha, ha, in their class. Yeah, they're out of fit because they didn't know how to do that. So he said fear, everybody's going, you know, in class. Yeah, they're on a fit because they didn't know how to do that. So he said fear, I hadn't done like a minute less, yeah. And he says this is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Oh, he picked up your piece. Yes, and I thought, oh, they're all going to get mad at me now. And anyway, I sat there and I had drawn a stair, steps shallow in underneath the stairs with a little girl all afraid, oh, hiding. Yeah, she had fear on the face and I don't want any girl that I don't. But to me that would be fear, yeah, and so I'm afraid someone's going to come downstairs and get her or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the kids all go you're kidding. And he said this is what I want. He said, they said we don't have nothing to look at. They wanted a reference. And you didn't need a reference, I just needed the word. And uh, anyway, this is what we did.
Speaker 1:And then his wife and him was from pennsylvania and they wanted me to go to school there. Yeah, because pittsburgh and pennsylvania has a really good art school. Well, that's where they were from. Yeah, and uh, I say my mom and dad would let me do that. Yeah, then we had this lady come over to our school and she wanted to do her master's math and I did her master's. So what do you mean? You did? You worked with her for her master's. She didn't work. I did the work and you drew her work for her.
Speaker 1:Oh, I drew the beatles. Oh, paul, george and john and lingo, and this came out of my head, yeah, and then they were and every, and we she had a camera and we used it. The girls that worked with me as far as like with a camera. Yeah, they took the clips and I would have these beetles move and it's like the plan. Oh so, stop motion animation, uh-huh, clip clip.
Speaker 1:So you were, you, in high school when this happened. Oh yeah, I was, uh, sophomore, oh my gosh. And anyway, flip, flip, flip. And then it gets even better. I had a water that moved under the beatles feet as they played, oh my goodness. And they moved. You came up with all that. And then at the end well, that would have been the same time that the art person came to the house, because 15 is like sophomore year in high school, anyway, I am. Anyway, at the end of it she was getting her master's and uh, and at the end of it it was back in the you know, 60, yeah, yeah. And so at the end of the beatles thing, they went, kept on going and I had this big little mushroom with this little elf underneath the thing at the very end and it looked like it all blew up. Oh, everything was moving. That's really cool, gosh. I wish I knew where that was. Well, she had it. Do you remember her name? I didn't even know her name. I don't think they might have told me back then. Yeah and uh, that's really so we did that.
Speaker 1:Then I did a lot of murals for people, yeah, in these houses in macarthur. Yeah, I remember you painting murals in people's houses. Let's go back way back when you were little. Like what's the first time you remember drawing anything? How old were you all the time? I can't remember when I first started. It was a very, very little then. And then, just like I told you, when Hannah Ava came over, she didn't. Yeah, but I'm talking about you. Oh, I mean, I know the grandchildren, I know that, but I'm talking about when you remember.
Speaker 1:Oh, when you were little, I would draw on every piece of paper I could find in the house, on the back of it. If you had a plane, was it always pencils? Pencils? Yeah, yeah, and um, do you remember the first time you got crayons or paint? I had crayons, but I didn't like them because I couldn't shadow that good with crayons. Oh, and I didn't like to be.
Speaker 1:If I made a mistake on a picture, you want to be able to erase it. No, I just fixed it. Oh, I never knew that. Okay, I just fixed it, because if you draw with something like that, you can't um, I don't know. I just fixed it okay, and so, um, I like to do the fast draw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's your favorite thing to draw? I think I know what you like, but I want to hear what you think you like to draw. I would draw pictures that I thought Jesus looked like. Yeah, I, I would think. I would think that I would think people are your favorite thing to draw. Yeah, people are my favorite.
Speaker 1:I can draw animals and just like the and just what's important to you, right, right, it's like when I told ava, I'm, I'm, I'm not, and let's tell anybody. I told her she was having problems drawing. She says teacher, school wants her to look at something and draw that. I said, well, that's nice and good. But I said I'm going to give you, um, something that I have, and and she says what she said. I said I'm going to give you one word and I want you to draw it. What you feel that word looks like to you. I said love. She looked at me, this little kid who drew the heart.
Speaker 1:Ava drew her drawings were pretty bad at that time and she drew a flat envelope with a love letter in it and it shall shade it in. And I had family and I drawed a tree and I and I wrote then I had this cemetery with a tombstone but I had this family tree and had everybody's on this tree, on the kids and all and on the tree it says tw plus lw that's me and your grandpa and um, and it's a cemetery and I had her little things out there, like it was an old one, and tombstones and I said this is out of two people, this is what god gave us all these people on this tree. Yeah, and that was love. Yeah, and she loved it. Yeah, that was good that you had to draw together like that. And I said, uh, you don't have to. I said, if you just use your, you can you see anything in your mind, and that's a real gift. That's really difficult for a lot of people to look at something in their head and to have it come out in their hand. I um been able to do that since I was very little. Yeah, that's, that's very talented mom.
Speaker 1:So you never went to college full-time. I do remember when you went to college, I had to take him with me, right one class and you had a baby and went to school with me. Yeah, you, you took him, but I didn't like that class you had art history. No, it was art expression. Uh-huh and um, wasn't there a famous artist coming to the school, andy warhol? Yeah, I remember you telling me about this and tell me about that whole thing. And I didn't go, I know, because you were like I don't like him, I didn't like his style, what on earth, mom? I didn't like it because he took people and just copied their faces, lots of them, and just made them in different colors, like famous people, like willman, right, right, right, and he had all different colors, iconic artist. You're like, I didn't go, I didn't like him. I remember you telling me that.
Speaker 1:So you had that class, artistic expression. Yes, and uh, andy warhol, and he was there, they brought him to OU, yep, yep, and I didn't go. Oh my, but I had a kid, I know, I know. But did you like the assignments for class? Yes, I did real well, it was more art expression and it was more abstract. I don't like abstract. You did, I know you don't, and so I liked it. Okay, but I really think that professor, he was funny.
Speaker 1:This guy asked a question, he went on and on about his student in the class and the guy down there, the old professor. He stood there, listening, listening, listening, and finally he said the guy down there, the old professor who stood there, listen, listen, listen. And finally he said the guy, quit, talk. Uh-huh. He says I'm absolutely how he said it. Uh, like he was dumber, he did, uh, expression art, abstract art and people walking around with lights on their heads and all this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't like that. Uh, I didn't come there to do that. I come there to want to more about how could I know how to do more out of what I got? You mean, you wanted to learn how to do more out of what I got. You wanted to learn how to do more realism. You like realistic drawing. I can remember whenever you would try to challenge me.
Speaker 1:Drawing is that if it looks just like it does in real life. That's when you thought it was right. That's when people, I thought, don't have to guess at what you're doing. They see it. I don't have to guess at what you're doing. Yeah, you see it. I don't like to guess stuff and I like it to be seen, and so you don't want somebody to interpret the, the work into a different way. You want it to be. This is exactly what I meant I want to be. When you see somebody, that that person and or you see, um, anything like that, like people draw still life, like fruit or something. Yeah, I didn't care about that either. I don't like you still like, because you probably didn't have an emotional like connection with it. You're like art to you, the very emotional, connecting.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love to draw children. I, I love to draw little kids, I love to draw old time people, angels. I love drawing angels and things like that. I've never seen a real angel, but I just got in my mind what they should look like.
Speaker 1:And so when you got to do these murals for people and they gave you a subject that they wanted to do, was that frustrating for you because you were drawing what they wanted rather than what you wanted? No, it was. It was real life, like the bank gave me. Uh, they didn't tell me what to paint, right, they wanted me to do something for a Benton County bat wall and it was a huge wall. It was the length it's oh, it was 30 feet. Yeah, yeah, and your dad built me a scaffold. That was fun. The climate yeah, this is a man who hated heights. Yeah, they built a homemade scaffolds for you to climb and use. And anyway, I got on my scaffold and I covered that whole back. Yeah, and I want to. I'm going to emphasize you did not grid this out. No, I didn't use, it was all freehand, the entire entire wall. That was like 30 feet high by just as long. It was huge, as high as this wall. Yeah, it was huge, it was big. And then you got up on that scaffold.
Speaker 1:You painted everything by hand of this entire country scene with trains. Well, I started out in the woods. I did these trees and in the trees I had beers. Yeah, I know I gave you a sketch. Yeah, you, I knew you sketched it out. But it's not like right now, a lot of people will doodle on the wall and then they'll map out exactly where everything goes. No, you didn't do any of that. No, I just I didn't even go by the sketch I gave him. Yeah, you just kept adding things and making things up. I had the trees and I had the leaves and everything, and it was kind of going down this way, because the wall was kind of that way, and so I got down to it's really pretty. The deers were in the woods and they was looking out, they look real, yeah, and the grass and everything, everything looked real.
Speaker 1:And then I got down where I wanted to put a, a creek bed, yeah, and I draw two little boys with overhauls on. One had a hat on the back and said they were fishing and I had to make my water look like it was moving. And so I did, yeah, and you could see down through. You see shadows, yeah, and over top the water I put a bridge, uh huh, I remember that, and the bridge where we had bitton County had the bridges, yeah. And the guy at the bank, he had a thing, oh, a train, yep, there's a train, it called it something in town, and this train was how to track, cause you have a mountain up there with good winter over top that bridge and this kind of tracking that. And that train was, but go through the track. I mean the bridge, yeah, yeah. And so it wasn't car bridge, it was a train bridge, yeah, and uh, then the woods up there.
Speaker 1:But the funnest thing I thought was making the water look like it was and you could see down through the water, yeah, the shadows, yeah. And I said I, if I was going to do something, I wanted to look real, look real, right, and it is really pretty. I know I have asked the bank for years if anyone had pictures of this. The lady that had this, bob Will, had the sketches, yeah, and he died, yeah, and his wife died. So I don't know, he probably, but the sketches yeah, but I know it was in the paper and I've always asked people that worked at the paper and the bank always wanted to see if somebody had pictures.
Speaker 1:I thought Martha Smith had took a picture of that, but she came up and watched people come up and watch me, which I didn't like. You don't like people watching your work, do you? No, no, no, I'm busy and I'm very fast, yeah, and I just don't want to stop and talk. I don't want to stop and talk and so I want to get it done because I had you know I, you was probably aunt ruby's house while I was there. The ruby come up, yeah, I remember, I remember you doing it. It was really cool, and then they built picnic tables and they walled it off so nobody would vandalize it. Then he said, linda I. He said would you want to put something over that? I said you made me paint that on, that paint you had on there and I said I hope it don't peel. That's why I told him and I said you wouldn't going to repaint right that and uh, so anyway, he, he, they built onto the yeah, and that's what happened and it's really cool that you did that. I remember you doing that.
Speaker 1:I remember you painting in people's houses. Oh, I did a lot of murals for people's houses. Now I do remember you starting a mural in our house and you didn't like it. You were very frustrated. We ended up mirroring the entire wall. I got really good, I got tired, I didn't like. I remember. I remember I remember the, the water in the middle and the tree and you started in the center and you didn't like it. You got so frustrated because I ended up putting mirrors on the wall. I, when I didn't like something, I didn't like it and I wouldn't go to make make any more time on it. Then I had to. Yeah, because I don't like to go. I don't like to do something that takes me a long time. Yeah, you're very impatient.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think is really cool is that in your lifetime, even though you never really focused on art like that with studies, you went into a culinary field. You started working at OU in the dining halls. They found that you were creative. You started making sculptures out of food. I would make yes, I make all the usual. People always made tomato roses, yeah, people always made tomato roses, yeah. But I found that I can make, uh, orange peel. Take the orange peel off the orange and then the white skin on this. Done, I would make roses and flowers out of that and then dye is really pretty, oh, yeah, you would use the fruit or the dye and I would cut that and I take it out and then it would uh actually forget any color you wanted, yeah, out of that.
Speaker 1:And you get to the point where they wanted you to teach that and you were like no, no, you can't. I couldn't teach that, I wouldn't. I tried to show people work how to do it and it was that would help. You tell me, yeah, I said, can you just carve it? Yeah, no, it's just funny how you knew how to do that out of no instruction, you just came out. I could do that tomato, um roses, or I could do tomato sculptures. You did mountains, you did palm trees, you did stuff out of pineapple and you did this for the President's Center. Yes, I did. One time I did all this stuff A lot.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that dinner was. We had a lot of people there. It was on the old side, which was all fancy, and the cafeteria which we came through, anyway, the old side, which was all fancy, yeah, and the cafeteria which we came through, anyway, the old side, and they had the food. People from, uh, where they wanted me that time they went to chicago and I didn't go there. I know, I know you wouldn't travel and anyway, uh, these people that came.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know what I did, but I had a bank thing. This is another one. I had a bank, big bank dinner for all the banks and I made a cheese ball which was a cheese dollar, yeah, out of vegetables and stuff like that, it's like a thing. But the cheese part looked like a dollar bill and it had green yeah on it, yeah, and it looked just like a dollar bill and they wanted to know who did that. And then we had a columnary company come in, yeah, and they wanted to know who did those trees for this dinner and I had all kinds of vegetables around the palm tree, yeah, and I covered the yeah, start them with um, wasn't it pineapple, pineapple wine, and looked like a palm tree and the top I put, um, they had these. I don't forget it was like it was eatable things flying out like the, probably like a parsley stems and stuff. Oh, it was bigger than that. Okay, anyway, I had that. And then at the bottom it said on a piece of great big plastic and then I sectioned the food on every one of them. I thought that was pretty cool. Huh, they never seen things like it. Because I made it up, yeah, and I had the maintenance guys make me the styrofoam. Yeah, you would tell them forms you needed. Yeah, and they cut me out all kinds of stuff. Like we had a Texas dinner one time and they made me all kinds of cactus. I painted them, they made them.
Speaker 1:Then one year we had Halloween and in the Jefferson's dining hall, everywhere I went, the kids were following me, the students, okay. And this year I went outside this is where I'm working and I went outside and I painted this plastic tablecloth orange like a squire and I put that on that big it was a little, it's a good size wagon we had in that onion hole, yeah, and I put a skeleton. I made a skeleton and put that skeleton in the front of that setting in the wagon and I put, I put a light inside of the light inside of the uh, covered wagon, yeah, so it was on fire. It was on fire and I had a fan, oh, and so the orange thing, the orange tablecloth, I mean the tablecloth, yeah. Then one time I turned off the wagon into a circus wagon and I put a I draw a lion on a great thing. They put that on it and uh, it was really funny because I, I, it was a lion, it was in a cage, that's cool. And uh, just a picture looked just like a wagon.
Speaker 1:You see some circus, and they didn't pay you extra for any of this, but they would like give you cameras and stuff and you're like I don't know how to use this and anyway, on the bottom of it, that's how mean I am I, I meryl, my buddy, yeah, I love meryl, meryl, lion famous. Oh, my gosh, that's so funny. You named your lion meryl. Yeah, he goes. You just so mean to me and I don't shed it now. Oh, my goodness, that's so funny that we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun at work. I got along. I love the people I know I've so set my left because I had to retire. Yeah, you'd had you need. You deserve to retire, mom, you've had a lot of work because I was cooking plus doing that. Yeah, yeah, I know I never took a break. I like break time.
Speaker 1:This when I did my artwork yeah, you draw napkins and people would want to keep them. Yeah, I gave them away to everybody. And the young kids come by and say, did you just draw that? And I go, yeah, I said you can have it, can I have that? Oh, and I thought, yeah, I always did that. I like the kids. Yeah, I know you're a good grandma too. Yeah, but well, I just wanted to like kind of capture these stories that you have told me over the years because I just thought they were so cute and I wish you would still draw.
Speaker 1:I think I know your hand. You have arthritis from all the years of working. I know your poor little hands and I think it would be good therapy for you to do that. But I know arthritis. I still can draw. Yeah, I got this. This is what I draw with. Yeah, they used to crookedest ones. See, this one's bent this way, yeah, and my hands?
Speaker 1:I, you know I've worked all my life. I know Working and I know I was raised as farm girl. I know you were, I know you were, you're very talented. Oh, I don't know about that. You are, you are.
Speaker 1:I don't feel I'm talented, I only think I feel like I, if I ever accomplish anything in life, it would be that I was a good mom, yeah, and a good grandma, yeah. Yeah, that's what I want. Well, you definitely did that. That's it, I know, because I think you get one shot in life and you should be happy. What you do, yeah, you should, and a lot of people aren't they always searching something to make them happy. I know, and I never had to do that and I could say I had a very blessed life.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'm blessed that you're my mom, I'm blessed that you're my daughter, even though she's mean. I'm mean, yeah, I'm spoiled. That's what dad always called her. Spoiled Because I was the only girl. Yes, you was, I know, I'm very much like that.
Speaker 1:And your brothers, my brothers, could do no wrong, but I, your brothers, did plenty, yeah, but y'all went to college and you all went to school and we did because of you. I worked at au and I got your school for it, yeah, I know. And then we love you for it, but I do it all over again for my grandkids, like I know you would. You were here for them, though you still are, so. So my grandchildren and my children and all your, all my family I got a son-in-law sitting over there. I can't you don't hear me. He hears you. He loves you.
Speaker 1:Well, I love you and I just wanted to get this out there in the world because I love your stories. I thought they were so cool. Are you putting this out there? I am. I thought you just saved it for yourself. No, this is it. You won't be on video. It'll be audio. Oh, they won't be able to see my pretty hair, maybe for a second. I don't care. I love you, I love too. Thank you, you're welcome. How can I get me birth code? Thanksgiving dinner.
